Will Digg Make a Category for Nonprofits?

Lori Halley30 September 20085 comments

Arguably the most influential of social bookmarking sites, Digg.com is
often both criticized and commended for having a narrow topic focus. With big changes in the works at Digg right now, what are the odds that the site might broaden its
horizons, and add a separate category for nonprofits and social change?

A fair number of solid stories from the nonprofit sector are
submitted to Digg every day — but those stories tend to get lost in the
crowd.

High visibility on Digg depends on users voting for (“digging”) a
story. As a result, Digg’s coveted front page tends to be dominated by
stories that reflect the interests of the predominantly young male
userbase. Technology, gadgets, and “oddball” news stories prosper,
while nonprofits and social change languish in the shadows.

But, even more than that, it comes down to the structure of the site.

To submit a story to Digg, you have to select an appropriate
category in which to place it. And for readers to find nonprofit news
on Digg can be a real challenge. Stories related to nonprofits and
social change are scattered across the site, filed variously under
Technology, Business, Science/Environment, Lifestyle…

One of our readers, Ashley Messick, makes a compelling case for a dedicated Digg category for nonprofits:

Recently I was wanting to Digg a blog post about using
Twitter for Nonprofits and I ran into the age-old dilemma of how to
categorize it. I got to thinking about what a great resource center it
would be if Digg had a category for nonprofits. I tweeted about my
thoughts and got some positive responses that fueled my thinking.

Currently nonprofits are really starting to consider how they can
utilize technology and social media in general to help their causes.
Nonprofit tech and Nonprofit social media blogs abound and in general
we are all forced to rely on our RSS feeds and bloggers in general to
spread nonprofit news and resources. In my opinion Digg would be just
what the nonprofit world is looking for. Plus I think that it would be
a great addition to the Digg community - a group of do-gooders who are
looking for a way to further their individual causes and the collective
cause of helping the worldwide community.

At the present time
Digg doesn’t have a very good spot or way to categorize stories
pertaining to nonprofit news so we wind up trying unsuccessfully to use
the search function and spread the Dugg stories in blogs and through
tweets. Wouldn’t a Nonprofit category on Digg be a much better fit?

She has a point.

And I think there’s a potential benefit to the nonprofit sector,
here, that would be far more significant than even the
much-talked-about “Digg effect” — server-crashing floods of traffic
drawn to a website when a post hits the front page of Digg (although,
of course, most of us are delighted to gain new visitors to our
sites!): Think, rather, nonprofit zeitgeist.

The strength of Digg lies in the fact that users “collectively determine the value of content,” as Digg itself puts it.

And it doesn’t stop there. Because Digg is all about sharing and
discovery, there’s a conversation that happens around the content.
We’re here to promote that conversation and provide tools for our
community to discuss the topics that they’re passionate about. By
looking at information through the lens of the collective community on
Digg, you’ll always find something interesting and unique. We’re
committed to giving every piece of content on the web an equal shot at
being the next big thing.

When social-marketing blogger Alexandra Rampy (SocialButterfly)
explored Digg for the first time earlier this summer, she found the site both useful and
frustrating: “Unlike some social bookmarking sites,” she says, “Digg
lets me get feedback and hear more from peers about the type of content
I submit to it. And, I get to see/read what peers find interesting
which helps me find new and interesting content.”

But can stories from the nonprofit world really get an “equal
shot at being the next big thing,” if they’re competing for attention
with the stories of celebrity scandals, tech gadget fads, and Wall Street
bailouts?

With last week’s announcement of a $28.7 million investment in Digg — slated to fuel Digg’s plans
for “personalizing the Digg experience, enhancing the recommendation
system across other areas of the site, creating deeper category and
topic content views and more ways to discover and organize content” —
perhaps there is some hope for a Nonprofits and Social Change category
to be added.

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Comments

Ashley Messick said:

Tuesday, 30 September 2008 at 10:12 AM

Thanks for posting this Rebecca. I like that you really center in on the fact that Digg is about community and collective action. What could be more fitting with nonprofits and social change than that?

Now of course on a more logistical and less philosophical view point -

"But can stories from the nonprofit world really get an “equal shot at being the next big thing,” if they’re competing for attention with the stories of celebrity scandals, tech gadget fads, and Wall Street bailouts?"

I'm not sure if many nonprofit stories would - but is that the point? I think there is a lot of back and forth about if Digg is all about "making it to the front page"? In my opinion I would love to be able to go to Digg, click the nonprofit tab, and see what makes it to that "front page". I don't care about the Mario Brothers cartoon or YouTube video or many of the things that the (you're right) predominantly young white male population thinks is important. I want to be able to zero in on what my peers in the nonprofit community and those who care about social change think is important. I think that the way Digg is currently set up it is difficult to do this any other way.

Beth Kanter said:

We had some debate about whether having a nonprofit category on Digg would put us in a silo or help raise visibility.

Lori Halley [Engaging Apricot] said:

Tuesday, 30 September 2008 at 5:36 PM

Ashley, thanks for providing the link and for following up on your email. It would seems that Digg is entering a period of evolution, so this is likely a good time for this conversation!

Logically, the Digg/nonprofits relationship could go one of two ways from here: either nonprofit news continues to "duke it out" with other stories in the various categories, or it goes into a category of its own -- integration or segregation?

It might depend in large part on what audience one hopes to attract through a Digg submission: interested seekers from within the nonprofit sector, or "accidental tourists" from outside the sector who might come across a compelling nonprofit story while they're catching up on the iPhone news. (Beth, would I be right in thinking that's behind the debate you mentioned: silo vs visibility?)

There are those who maintain that all stories -- regardless of sector -- should be able to compete on a level playing field for public attention and readership; that if there is to be a category for nonprofits then there'd also need to be one for Agriculture, for example, or Military interests...

And then there's the question that Ari Herzog raised in a comment on your post, Beth -- "Is Digg the right network?" Could it be that a different social-bookmarking site might be a better place for collecting and filtering the nonprofit news?

Digg will do what Digg will do, of course, in the end -- they'll do what makes sense for them as a company.

Which brings us to the question I posed in the title of this post: "Will Digg Make a Category for Nonprofits?" Want a prediction? Given the green-shifting social climate, a nonprofit.Alltop.com, a Charity//Nonprofit category on StumbleUpon, and similar tracks in the sand -- I'd not be a bit surprised to see it happen, and sooner rather than later.

Your thoughts?

Lori Halley [Engaging Apricot] said:

Tuesday, 30 September 2008 at 5:41 PM

The discussion continues!

Read the new post at Beth Kanter's blog:
NpTech Summary: Nonprofit and Social Change Digg Redux for detailed background on aggregation of nonprofit news online, both sides of the nonprofit-Digg-category debate, and what the nonprofit sector's leading voices are saying about how nonprofits can/should use Digg.

Melanie Guin MNM said:

Wednesday, 01 October 2008 at 4:55 AM

I have found that many sites on the net that categorize content fail to have a nonprofit category. It's quite frustrating, as I feel that while nonprofits are definitely a business, most times nonprofit info doesn't seem to quite fit with the other information that typically gets categorized under "business". Maybe we'll get lucky and the Digg folks will heed our call.

www.charitynetusa.com/blog

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